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Homecall


Homecall was one of the first of the new phone companies to set up in competition with British Telecom to offer cheaper calls. At the time this took people by surprise and they couldn't see how Homecall could undercut BT's phone call charges and still connect via a BT phone!

In the words of Homecall "Homecall is a service provided by Caudwell Communications Ltd. Homecall provides low cost telephone and broadband services to customers that have a BT landline. Caudwell Communications is part of the Caudwell Group which includes companies such as Phones4u, 20:20 Logistics, Cornerstone Resourcing, 4u, Dextra and Wizcom".

Homecall is available to anyone with a BT telephone line. What happens if you switch to Homecall is that your phone LINE stays with British Telecom, so you still pay the line rental and have the advantage that if there's any problems with the telegraph poles in the street, BT engineers will come and fix it. But the phone CALLS Homecallare done via Homecall, and as they are different to BT, they are allowed to charge different prices. Most of the Homecall charges are less than BT, although some might be more (see note at end of page about premium rate numbers). If you have your phone account with Homecall, this doesn't stop you from making select calls via BT (by putting 1280 in front of the number). That way you can choose (BT/Homecall) for each call, and you can have the best of both worlds.

Here are some examples as quoted by Homecall 2005:

There are various landline packages available, which include:

* Homecall 5p Everytime - make up to 90 minutes local and national calls at evenings and weekends for just 5p per call

* Homecall Hometime - unlimited local and national calls at evenings and weekends for just £6 per monthHomecall

* Homecall Anytime - unlimited local and national calls at daytime, evenings and weekends for just £12.50 per month

And there are Broadband Internet packages as follows:

* Homecall Broadband Standard – 150K for only £19.99 per month, £17.49 if taken with a landline package

* Homecall Broadband Extra – 512K for only £24.99 per month

There is a special offer on at present (mid 2005) which Homecall explain as follows: "If customers sign up for both Telephony and Broadband together, customers can take advantage of free Broadband connection and free modem (worth £85). Plus, unlike many other Internet Service Providers, Homecall Broadband has no download limits!"

Homecall Broadband offers the following:

Having Homecall as your phone company has a few advantages and disadvantages. The calls are cheaper, and just about everything works the same as if the calls were via BT. Things such as 1417 mostly work ok (see the page about the phone), although *411# charge advice doesn't.

If you have Homecall you can still make calls via BT by prefixing the number with 1280.

If you'd like to give this a try, here's the link:

Link here to visit HOMECALL

http://www.homecall.co.uk affiliate program was with Affiliate Window We are sorry to say that Homecall have gone, but we hope they will return again soon! Have a look at the alternative companies on this site at Phone Companies.

Update 2007: Caudwell Communications now have mobile phone trading partners: Cool New Mobile and Phonebox Direct

Point about premium rate numbers: I have it on good authority (enquired at ICSTIS 2005/04/29 and verified at Homecall) that dialling premium rate numbers from a Homecall line can incur extra charges (can be a total of up to double in some cases). But don't let this put you off signing up to Homecall. Just remember to put 1280 before any premium rate numbers, thus diverting those particular calls via the BT Network where the charges are standard! If you do this, £1.50/min numbers will then cost £1.50/min, rather than £3/min. Homecall do not mind if you selectively divert in this way, and they'd prefer if you didn't dial premium rate numbers through their system. This information is correct at the time of publishing, but if it changes, please let us know. In particular, if Homecall have a change in charging tariffs, we need to be politely informed so this paragraph can be corrected with the current status on this.


Extra info for the affiliate program: This is a particular web page solely devoted to promoting Homecall and it has no other advertising or external links. Also we don't do PPC, and we actively campaign against spyware